Guilty verdict in burglary trial; victim was federal public defender

A man whose only link to a burglary scene was one spot of blood on a Post-It note was found guilty by a jury Wednesday afternoon.

By April WarrenStaff writer

A man whose only link to a burglary scene was one spot of blood on a Post-It note was found guilty by a jury Wednesday afternoon.

Sentencing for Rocco Dominic Gelonese, 34, will be delayed up to 45 days because a pre-sentencing investigation has been ordered.

The defendant was charged with two felony counts of burglary of a structure and grand theft and a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief.

Authorities say he broke into the federal Public Defender’s Office sometime over the second weekend of May 2012. A computer, two monitors and a keyboard were reported missing and were not recovered.

The office is at 201 SW Second St., Suite 102, in Ocala.

The state filed a habitual felony offender notice in the case, which could allow Circuit Judge Brian Lambert to impose a sentence of up to 11 years in prison.

“He damaged the window, he went in and took that property that did not belong to him,” Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Bass told the jury in her closing argument. She characterized Gelonese’s intent as “willful and malicious.”

DNA testing on the blood recovered from the Post-It note matched Gelonese’s DNA. He was arrested on Aug. 2 inside the Marion County Jail, where he was being held on a different case.

In laying out the defense’s case, Assistant Public Defender Amanda Sizemore raised the question of possible contamination in the handling and processing of Gelonese’s DNA.

She also pointed out no fingerprints, eyewitnesses or surveillance footage evidence linked her client to the burglary.

Police did not close off the crime scene before employees arrived. A large rock and piece of landscaping cloth found at the scene that had been thrown through the window, smashing the glass, were not tested for evidence.

Sizemore works for the 5th Judicial Circuit Public Defender’s Office; there’s no conflict of interest because the victim in this case was the federal public defender.

Gelonese has several prior arrests and convictions, according to court records.